Bidwell, Adonijah. Sermon booklets

Collection History

Adonijah Bidwell (1716-1784) was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1716 to Thomas and Prudence Bidwell. He attended Yale, graduating in 1740, and in April of 1745 joined the Connecticut Fleet preparing to sail for Canada as part of a response to escalating hostilities on British colonial holdings in Nova Scotia (King George's War). As part of the Fleet, Bidwell served as chaplain on the Sloop of war "The Colony", sent to Cape Breton Island. Bidwell returned to Hartford, and in 1750 settled in Tyringham (now Monterey), Massachusetts, as their first settled pastor. In 1752, Bidwell married Theodosia Colton, daughter of his Yale tutor Rev. Benjamin Coulton. Theodosia died in 1759, childless. In 1760, Bidwell married Theodosia’s first cousin, Jemima Devotion, with whom he had four children before her death in 1770. Bidwell married Ruth Kent, his third and final wife, in 1772. Adonijah Bidwell died in 1784.